Harvey Karman: 1924 - 2008

Made abortion cheaper, simpler

Psychologist drew criticism over device

May 21, 2008|By LOS ANGELES TIMES

Harvey Karman, a flamboyant psychologist whose invention made a key contribution to women's reproductive health, making abortions simpler, less expensive and less painful, died May 6 at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 84.

The cause was a stroke, said his son, Kenneth, of Los Angeles.

Mr. Karman was drawn to the plight of women facing unwanted pregnancy in the 1950s, when abortion was illegal. While training in psychology at UCLA, he started an underground abortion referral service and eventually performed abortions himself, for which he was convicted and sent to state prison for 21/2 years.

In the early 1970s he developed a soft, flexible tube, or cannula, for a device that was widely adopted in the United States and developing countries to perform early abortions.

He freely demonstrated its use for doctors and other medical professionals and in 1972 was part of a humanitarian mission to terminate the pregnancies of 1,500 Bangladesh women who had been raped by Pakistani soldiers.

His cannula is still widely used today.

"Harvey Karman did more for safe abortion around the world than practically any other person in the world," said Dr. Malcolm Potts, professor of Population and Family Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, who accompanied Mr. Karman to Bangladesh 35 years ago.

Mr. Karman had many detractors, particularly because of his attempt to revolutionize second-trimester abortions with a device called the supercoil, which was inserted into the uterus and expanded when exposed to moisture, causing a miscarriage.

It caused serious complications, including hemorrhaging and infection, when it was used on 11 women in Philadelphia on Mother's Day in 1972.